One of the best ways to learn how to not just talk to, but passionately care about your customers is to repeatedly be on the receiving end of customer service — or lack thereof — from other companies. I've got 2 shining stars:
Wufoo – Some of the best forms on the web. They can do surveys more beautifully than SurveyMonkey too — basically, if it's meant to be filled out with text and submitted, Wufoo's the main game. They've been trailed by copycats like Icebrrg, but Wufoo stays ahead and even won a Jakob Nielsen award — you know how tough that dude can be!
I use Wufoo for my contact form, and their support has been unfailingly polite, personal, and definitely passionate. They do use stock responses when your question can be answered by those, which is fine. Infact, their stock responses have a tinge of character which places them heads (and shoulders) above the rest of the generic pack. (Who says pre-made replies must be boring? Boring people, that's who.) And for the several times I needed followup tracing a bug, Team Wufoo rocked. Thanx to Chris, Ryan, Tim, and all of you fab stars.
VodPod – I didn't understand what the point of VodPod was at first, but they provided an easy way to embed videos on the Second Life Blog. since focusing more on blip.tv than YouTube due to the latter's dismal lack of support and awful audiovisual quality (popularity and Google don't buy everything), I've come to appreciate how easy it is to collect and organize videos across multiple sites. It bundles them nicely together.
I've been helped by the tight team headed by Mark Hall, and I'll never forget the quick turnaround Spencer Miles gave us Lindens on fixing bugs needed to improve a certain Second Life project you'll see more of soon (hint: it's about videos, mwahaha).
There was one time when I emailed the wrong address and had false expectations for help, but reaching the real deal really is that.